The present invention relates to a product monitoring system for monitoring, or keeping track of, various types of products. The invention is particularly useful in merchandising of products and also in inventory control of products, and is therefore described below particularly with respect to such applications.
In the common retail store, consumers remove products from the shelves, place them in their shopping carts, and present them at a point of sale (POS) for identification, price calculation and payment. To identify each purchased product, the products are usually labeled with a universal product code (UPC, or "bar-code") readable by a scanner connected to the POS. Scanning is done by a cashier holding each product to expose its UPC to the scanner. The labor cost and the line waiting time in such systems have prompted the introduction of a commercial self-scanning system, wherein the shopper uses a handheld scanner to scan the UPC of each item placed in his shopping cart. The handheld scanner includes a display, a copy of the updated price database, and a calculating unit, enabling the shopper to update the information regarding the cart's contents. Items whose UPC cannot be read by the scanner (which is quite common) are presented at the POS for re-scanning. Random re-scanning of the entire cart contents deter shoppers from dishonest behavior. Examples of handheld scanners for use by consumers are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,457,307 and 5,382,779, 5,361,871, or 5,345,071.
Also known are electronic shelf label systems, in which the store's central computer downloads price information to electronic shelf labels placed near merchandise items. Examples of such systems are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,002,886, 4,139,149, 4,521,677, 4,766,295, 5,019,811 and 5,313,569.
Also known are systems for counting items displayed on the shelves, as part of routine inventory control or order management, in which a handheld portable unit is used to either scan or key-in the product's code and then key-in count information. Such information is downloaded later into the store computer through a terminal at the store office.